Geography Archives: New Zealand

Far from the killing grounds of Gaza, an incredible display of defiance to settler colonialism has broken out in, of all places, New Zealand. The two projects–Israel and New Zealand’s–are linked more than many would like to think. Palestinian leaders raise their voices in support of New Zealand’s Māori people at this critical moment.

Māori MP Hana-Rāwhiti Maipi-Clarke captured global attention with a powerful haka performed to protest the controversial Treaty Principles Bill.

What do two South Pacific countries, two North American countries, one country in the Middle East, and (until recently) one country in southern Africa have in common with Europe?

After meeting with Secretary of State Antony Blinken last April, New Zealand’s Minister of Foreign Affairs, Winston Peters, sa­id that the two countries had pledged “to work ever more closely together in support of shared values and interests.” In recent moves exemplifying this support, New Zealand has deployed a targeting team to a United States-led coalition conducting strikes against Yemen, extended its military participation in the U.S. proxy war in Ukraine, and is considering membership of AUKUS, the anti-China military agreement between Australia, the United Kingdom, and the United States.

‘The violent repercussions of Israel’s war on Gaza are spreading across the Middle East, threatening a much wider conflict,’ Stop the War says.

As the new government of nuclear-free New Zealand leans towards joining the anti-China bloc, critics warn of weakened sovereignty in a sea of expanding militarization, Mick Hall reports.

New Zealand’s estimation matters because it is a small country in Southern Pacific heavily dependent on trade with China for preserving its prosperity and yet one of the Five Eyes (along with the U.S., UK, Australia and Canada), the exclusive secretive security grouping of Anglo-Saxon countries. 

Tina Ngata explains the social and legal legacies of a 15th-century Christian principle that paved the way for imperial violence in, and far beyond, New Zealand.

Climate change is already leading to rising sea levels, threatening island and coastal communities and devastating food security and access to fresh water. Long-term drought and changes in weather patterns are causing hunger and destroying farming land.

The real forces responsible for the destruction of many Muslim-majority countries and the current chaos present in many Western countries are not generated by civilian populations or religions but instead by the global oligarchy that engineers and profits from this chaos.

The fact that a large number of refugees, especially from countries which have been subjected of late to the ravages of imperialist aggression and wars, are desperately trying to enter Europe is seen almost exclusively in humanitarian terms.  While this perception no doubt has validity, there is another aspect of the issue which has escaped […]

In January 2016, I attended Tate Britain’s Artist and Empire: Facing Britain’s Imperial Past, a disappointing exhibition that in spite of its title did not face Britain’s past in any meaningful way.  On the contrary, as I argued in my review, it shied away from this bloody history in favour of quasi-glorification, non-committal wording and […]

5th Dr. BR Ambedkar Memorial Lecture, Indian Institute of Dalit Studies, New Delhi, September 27, 2014 I I would like to use this occasion to dwell upon a point to which Dr Ambedkar had drawn attention in his closing speech to the Constituent Assembly on November 25, 1949.  In that speech he had underscored a […]

I. The Piketty Argument Thomas Piketty’s book Capital in the Twenty-first Century embodies an immense amount of empirical research into the distribution of wealth and income across the population for a number of advanced capitalist countries going back for over two centuries.  In particular Piketty has made extensive use of tax data for the first […]

There is a pervasive view that growth under capitalism, though it may worsen poverty, even absolute poverty, to start with, eventually leads to a lowering of poverty.  The experience of the English Industrial Revolution is invoked in this context.  There has been a huge debate among economic historians about the impact of the Industrial Revolution […]

Five years ago today, an explosion rocked the Sago mine in Upshur County, West Virginia.  Twelve miners died; miners’ families were led on a horrific emotional roller-coaster ride during which they were told that their trapped fathers, husbands, brothers, uncles, and in-laws had been found alive (only to find out, hours later, that only one […]

A year after the chaotic Copenhagen summit, the 2010 UNFCCC climate conference begins in Cancun.  Expectations are low this time around, especially compared to the eve of Copenhagen. That’s probably both good and bad.  The conference last year had been so hyped up beforehand, with so much hopes linked to it, that the lack of […]

  The global crisis has led some to question the dollar’s place as the dominant currency.  This column discusses three camps in the literature: those advocating a new synthetic global currency, those arguing that a new reserve currency will emerge, and those suggesting a return to sharing the role.  It concludes that talk of the […]

  CALL TO ACTION Organize Events in Your City! Confront Dow Chemical at the Dow/Live Earth Run for Water Tell Dow: You Can’t Run from Your Responsibilities! APRIL 18 2010, 8:00 am Dow Chemical was among the chief producers and profiteers of Agent Orange during the Vietnam War.  In addition to wartime exposure resulting in […]

  Today is my daughter Leila’s fourth birthday, and while this occasion brings my thoughts back to the day she was born, the past 24 hours have otherwise been full of fairly devastating news. If the left can admit to having icons, then two of them have just died.  Yesterday it was the great historian […]